pro-government militias in libya keep up their deadly assault and seize on colonel gadhafi as former stronghold of bani walid with reports that chemical gas is being used. fresh unrest also reported in beirut with five people injured after a weekend valan clash a spat sparked the assassination of a senior lebanese intelligence official. plus america's global position is the topic for obama and romney's final turn on t.v. with the two running in the polls and voters having a tough time telling them apart r t has in-depth coverage. were all set is set to

become the biggest public traded company in the wold a deal has finally been stopped with b.p. telling it in seeing pay b.p. to rush's. were off they have done made about twenty third of all the. thank you for joining our team this monday it is four o'clock here in moscow and i'm karen tara a libyan pro-government militias are continuing to pound the besieged town of bani walid as the standoff over the gadhafi stronghold intensified its fierce clashes in the outskirts of the town have left over twenty people dead and many more injured hundreds of terrified families have fled their homes and there are claims and reports rather claiming that chemical gas is being used we had no live to renegotiate with more details for you know worrying developments about the nature

of the fighting what more do we know. absolutely seems like we find out something more and more terrible details every coming hour or so we know right now that there is the jewish and while the which is in its eighteenth day ologists egypt being under this pressure from other pro-government forces as he's getting only worse we have been managed to conquer we have been in contact with some of the people on the ground and they have given us the yes and i did this mission for us telling us describing just how dire the situation is in any of the american doctors don't hold . them out of a very very proud orderly respect coming from are going to be very proud and they're probably going to be around for that period so i would feel pretty good that there are over the broader group to go if you can about the book being but they do coming or going they're going to be you. know we're watching our lot

pictures not rather live pictures our record of pictures coming out very graphic just how intense is the level of fighting right now. well you can see for yourself as a matter of fact of course some of the things have been edited but for you or for the sake of the safety of your psyche you can say it's terrible obviously there are people who were doing that and the weaponries being used there have been reports talking about some sort of gas also being used on the residents of talent people obviously cannot at this point tell exactly who is fighting is it just the civilians and the rebel and the. pro-government forces or is it just one big jumble of people and a complete and total chaos obviously for yourself blood all over the place people with body parts torn off in this iteration seems to be getting worse and worse and the fighting seems to be tense by this is the fifth day off this very very intense fire. going on between the. residents out the town and our government forces

it doesn't seem like it's going to subside anytime soon announcer and i'm i would add that that it is causing widespread reaction all across libya and you're saying you'd also think that there's any sign of coming anytime soon. well it was a look see for yourself there have been obviously used just about reaction there have been residents of the of the town of bani walid who are now in tripoli they marched on the government had orders to protest the siege of their hometown they were dispersed they were dispersed by the security personnel. of live ammunition heavy weaponry in the air at this point they're firing if they are there was also there were also protests and been gaz the people there stormed a television television station which is that parents american owned television channel because they did not like it for trail of the events that are happening and on you while you if you think back to several months before just of this summer just the recent months there has been an attack on a u.s.

embassy in which an ambassador was killed so you have these hotspots where you still have some of the gadhafi supporters you also have obviously broken by a troops fighting with them and then of course we must not forget about these groups which are all zones radically spread out all throughout libya which are links to al qaida is the hub of whole bunch of a lot of these groups which are fighting. constantly and there is absolutely no order there's an r.q. there is chaos and nobody can tell you when it's going to stop and how. with the latest details live from tel aviv our teaser in english to thank you. now to discuss of the reports of chemical weapons being used in bani walid is non bowie and depending us journalist and author based in the middle east. well good to have you on our team now why are these latest reports on possible chemical weapons use in bani walid being ignored i mean we've seen saddam hussein who is internationally

blamed for using them against iranian and kurdish civilians. thank you for having me on i think there are several general factors that can attribute here to this bearing of the story i think one is the difficulty of confirming such reports personally i'm someone who is very skeptical of activist testimony regardless of what side testimony claims to represent and i also think the us presidential elections being around the corner is certainly a very interesting. president for keeping this this kind of monumental headline off the front pages and the significance of. it cannot be understated either now we know that this is a region in libya where of real. activist groups from the. us. this is a part of libya where several of the. forces.

i apologize. this is a part of libya well what we're seeing now. in. bani walid is the sensually an area where we have our we go forces black black black skinned libyan forces. but now i don't know if the connection is wrong but i do i understand your stance but tell me this if it is proved true that bro pro-government militias who are supported by the west are using gas what kind of reaction might we expect to see. ok well what i think we should look at here is we should look towards me and are in southeast asia now the government me and maher recently normalized relations with the united states and what we see there happening is as they have done this. there's been no large

controversy over a state sponsored what we can call of carthage policy towards the. islamic minority groups in the western part of the country now the united states for example has turned a blind eye to this in brazen and i think and and just isn't libya in me and maher we have several factors. basically you have large economic. attributes in that in that part of the country in that country that are allowing. these force to turn a blind eye to it essentially giving them a trump card to operate rate as they would like with respect to human rights all right to life and to vinyl bawly and independent journalist and author i thinking. now lebanese troops and gunmen have reportedly exchanged fire in the capital beirut wounding five people there's been a weekend of violence across the country sparked by the nation of

a senior intelligence official general hossam who was a strong critic of syria's president assad was killed in a car bombing in beirut on friday the opposition blames damascus and the lebanese government for the killing with protesters demanding the prime minister's resignation police fire tear gas to push back crowds trying to storm the government building at least two people were killed in those clashes and political analyst. says the opposition is using the syrian conflict for its own political gain and it's dragging lebanon into the chaos. this is not new it's always the accusation was against syria against bashar al assad so this is the same but envisioned we heard it before we have to weigh them versteeg asian and then visitation should come quick and swift. but all the acquisition for now and. the country here i think. it's a recipe just a big over the country by the marshall for the i don't think this is going to

happen this time around this. otherwise we probably heading for a very difficult. very chaotic but i'm a lot going on and i don't know always going to be accountable for it and i would think a fourteen of march. if they continue on a violent because this will lead to a destruction of the country to the stability of the country and everybody will lose our especially us presidential election coverage is on the way barack obama and mitt romney gear up for their final debate this time it's washington's world view. and the breaking news in business the british oil. giant b.p. has to sell off its joint venture. it's all coming up after the break.

it's perched atop a jar and the view from the kremlin stretches as far as the eye can see. for a city to all of siberia for centuries. it lost its economic importance even before it was bypassed by the chance siberian railway but the ball's cremains a spiritual center. scenes like these are a yearly occurrence thousands of worship as implicity water to commemorate the baptism of jesus. in the fifteen eighties the russians had only just conquered siberia taking it from the muslims. surrounded by enemies to be their stronghold constructed on top of the

city but soon enough it became an economic hub siberian fire was the oil of its time bringing in a third of the state revenue put the location had of the uses for the russians the russian. a revolt against the czar and eight hundred twenty five known as the decembrists will stand here in droves there they created a replica high society adopting the latest fashions as soon as they came out or at least once they made it from paris to siberia. but the city also served up some bit of irony for the russian royal family after the bolshevik revolution. this is the office was solemn nicholas the second spend most of the last year of his life his whole family had been exiled here they were the fairly comfortable existence this was a big house but they weren't allowed to see visitors or go outside themselves whilst leaving this ordinary normal countryside lifestyle they even had thoughts of escape

but within the year bizarre of his family would be dead. and i don't want them back to our teeth for more of the world's news with me karen . well the final t.v. showdowns looming for barack obama and mitt romney they're running neck and neck right now and are expected to ramp up the rhetoric to secure those much needed last minute thoughts foreign policy will be in the frame later on monday and as part of our in-depth coverage looks at how much difference there really is between the two candidates. as we're waiting for the debate on foreign policy the last debate before the election on november the states many see it as the make or break point for both campaigns because president obama and governor romney have so far been running neck and neck but whoever is elected

america's next commander in chief will take on the same old foreign policy mission and that is to expand the country's influence in the world but is there that much daylight between the candidates let's try and find out the rhetoric of the romney team leaves no doubt that he advocates of more intrusive u.s. foreign policy we have to show strength in america that's perceived as weak as one that would be despised the one thing we all fear the most is a weak america what can. an image of america the current administration is also striving for a robust america in their own way we came we saw died. when folks mess with americans we go after the arab spring and the obama administration jumped on the bandwagon of the revolutions hoping to forge better alliances with the new leaders. while prompting the change with airstrikes and arms supplies when anti-american protests spread across the muslim world some asked whether it's time

for the u.s. to stop meddling in the middle east and north africa i don't see how how we could ever talk about divorcing ourselves from the region if the no other reason given the push in us policy you still have two primary drivers in terms of national interest and that is oil and israel president obama has shown allies like israel under the bus these three leaders also in saber rattling towards entrenched hysterics some tension with the white house it's clear the american people don't want to know the costly devastating war based on phony red line what should israel decides to attack and what would the two candidates do differently if it were to happen i don't think there's going to be much difference ultimately i understand and share this or not you know whose insistence that iran should not obtain a nuclear weapon my red line is iran may not have a nuclear weapon iran is a nuclear nation is unacceptable the united states president obama said exactly the same thing regarding obama's pivot into asia there's not much daylight between him

and romney either the policy involves expanding u.s. military presence to act as a counterbalance against china's growing power and to advance u.s. interests in asia pacific candidate romney shows a willingness to take the pivot to another level ramping up the pressure on beijing i'll crack down on china having been stuck in this cold war mentality he sees the world in very black and white terms so russia is a foe china is a foe it's almost as if the cold war war never ended and that regard the pivot toward asia makes perfect sense to mr romney and i really don't think he would change anything in the nature rhetoric as he issues the the presence of subtlety or the lack of subtlety is a primary difference between mr romney and mr obama in relations with russia on. like romney for whom russia this is without question our number one geopolitical foe president obama avoids cold war rhetoric after all you don't call russia our

number one enemy. not all kind of russia. unless you're still stuck in a cold war mind warp despite a more forthcoming official latitude the ministration indicated that they would still forge ahead with plans to build a missile shield close to russia it's a longstanding sore point in the relations between the two countries moscow has many times suggested resolving the issue by building the shields together to no avail. i spoke with former bush administration official colonel lawrence wilkerson and asked him whether a change in the oval office could mean a drastic change in the way america deals with the world is a marvelous consistency in american foreign policy whether it's wrong headed which it has been much sense especially in one thousand nine hundred ninety the end of the cold war. but there is a marvelous consistency to it and that's because foreign policy is foreign policy and security goals so presidents say one thing and then come in and get briefed and

they do another thing generally what they do is much like what the other party would do well even despite the consistency that the u.s. foreign policy has shown over the years during the debate the candidates still have to outline their differences they can't just say good evening ladies and gentlemen we both agree on pretty much everything so let's call the night we have tom hartman here mr harper thanks for joining me my pleasure the host of the big picture show on our t.v. one attacking. governor romney the obama campaign has this line and i heard it many times they say governor romney what would you do differently as if knowing and saying that as the president of the united states he would do exactly the same what do you think well. i think that we have a choice between the iron fist of american empire and we have a the largest military in the world it's larger than the accumulated militaries of the whole rest of the planet at least in terms of budget and so there's that iron fist which is what romney would project or at what he has said let's go back to the

cold war let's be bellicose let's threaten people with a war or do we put a velvet glove over the iron fist which is basically been the obama policy of you know we'll help you out a little bit will be we'll talk conciliatory but get out of the way and the drone is going to drop a bomb on your head where you expect from this debate monday night romney will basically say whatever he thinks it's going to take to get himself elected that's the problem he's got two constituencies basically that he's been appealing to one is the basically old white male constituency. well his age people who are fifty's sixty's seventy's who remember the cold war who still have that mentality who are who are very much in favor of the naked iron fist of american foreign policy and he's got to reach out to those people and obama doesn't have to historically has not and yet at the same time he knows that you know there's this younger generation that at least would like the velvet glove thank you mr herman thank you so as we watch the debate the questions through the fence are the two candidates different morning style then stops the i'm going to shut down i'll certainly be right here

after the debate trying to answer that question and also every monday will be zooming into one issue one big issue we know is series of pre-election reports make sure you don't miss that thanks for watching turning on the t.v. most americans are faced with a two horse race but it's not the full story there are other options on artie's helping those known as the third party candidates get some air time and get voters a chance i'll take the stand live here on r t with tom hartman there are three. this presidential election is not just about obama and romney there are also third party candidates on the ticket and they will influence its outcome see a debate among this nation's major third party candidates right here on our t.v. like over twenty third.

investigators say a leading russian opposition figure has handed himself into police and admitted to plotting mass riots in the country he any of that has version has now been arrested and after a recent documentary aired in russia which claimed opposition members received millions of dollars from georgia to cause mass unrest more details on this now from artie's tom parker. so many that as far as i have isn't the only one implicated by his confession who else is involved. the ten page confession in question names leonard rouse was and two other organizers in the protests on may the sixth as organizing not just protests but also violence yesterday and also saying that they colluded with the georgian m.p. who helped to fund their activities mr rose was saved that's on the contrary he was kidnapped in the ukraine smuggled back to russia and tortured to extract the

confession investigators in russia say that was not the case and that he wrote that confession of his own will he and others were the focus of a recent documentary shown on russian television that showed secret forces said that organizers such as surrogate solve another prominent opposition figure met with georgian officials and it's the documentary said that they would try. overthrow the russian government and it's best to geisha is ongoing into what happened on may the sixth when the protests turned violent and accusations of violence were made against both protesters and police all right artie's time bar and keep it here on our team will be bringing you all the updates as soon as we have a thank you tom. after three years a toiling in opposition pro independence parties are back in power in spain's

basque region separatism calls are now expected to grow louder with madrid's austerity being the first in the firing line in winning basque nationalist party described marianna rough boys government as a brake on development in the region and val's to put its economy back on track there are more lections in a few weeks when the wealthiest return catalonia well it's an area that's also seen growing separatist sentiment economics blogger gonzalo leaders says ailing finances and rising costs are why these regions want to go it alone. with the economic problems and economic discontent you have the urge to split away from the majority because you feel that the majority as a minority you feel that the majority is not cognizant of your problems is not helping you to overcome and it's a certain kind of blinders that the minorities will have that they feel that they are not being taken care of when in fact everybody suffer equally and this is the case in spain everybody is suffering under the sea and step by step alone yes but each independent region each of you just on this region feels

a day in particular are being made to suffer or its impact the entire country to be a huge unemployment issue in spain fifty percent youth unemployment and twenty five percent adult unemployment and the problem of these fire really. crisis that spain faces which is not going to have a happy ending and which is going to require drastic cuts. and just generalized economic reboot of the country and that's why you're seeing so much protests and so it's political gains for the independents who are. it's emerged that the deadly earthquake in spain last year could well have been manmade all mine a report on the new research that blames water extraction for disturbing a fault line eventually leaving nine people dead and hundreds homeless. also the classics condensed is it possible to tell tolstoy's war and peace in one hundred forty characters twitter things you can and has a fiction festival to try and prove it. all right let's now take

a look at some other world news headlines this hour there's been a volunteer demonstration outside courcelles government assembly building in the capital with dozens of people arrested there angry at sponsor talks to improve relations with serbia insisting there should be no meeting with belgrade while it continues to claim saw frenchie kosovo declared independence in two thousand and eight following bitter conflicts during the break up of yugoslavia. israel's killed two palestinian soldiers in an air raid in northern gaza which it claims is in response to militants firing mortars at their troops one of the dead men belong to hamas but the other is now been identified on tuesday hamas as legitimacy will get a boost with the first visit of a foreign leader since it took power five years ago the emir of qatar is trip is seen as a step towards breaking hamas as global isolation. let's join katie for the

business bulletin of us now is set to become the biggest publicly traded oil company in the world katie fellow said precisely rosalee as they have announced a two part deal worth around sixty billion dollars now it's been struck i think is b.p. a state of the russian energy firm and also offers a all the other shareholders that. as well as get all the latest on this from the b.p. side of things are now joined by. said hello to use the bully told me through the b.p. deal that was going. yes well we've been talking about it for a few days now and it's just been announced and of course they have to have come to an agreement over the for the deal that's going to see the piece sell its half of its russian joint venture t.i.n.k. b.p. to ross now the deal is shaping up to look like it's got two steps to it ross left is going to pay b.p. just over seventeen billion dollars in cash as well as provide some twelve point

eight four percent of the shares of the russian state oil company to b.p. the second part of the deal is going to see b.p. use some four point eight billion dollars of the cash that rosneft are paying them in order to buy more shares of ross nash so eventually that should end up with b.p. owning just under twenty percent of shares nineteen point seven five percent to be exact of ross net shad that's going to lead to b.p. also as a result of the deal they're going to have two people on rosneft nine nine person main board and the whole transaction is subject to approval by the russian government but that's quite widely expected to go through without any glitches. thank you very much also commenting on the deal alexander from bank says that the price tag. is will move there.

there is no real market estimate of fourteen. because the market capitalization of holding the least it attitude is just about forty billion dollars there the same time we should forget that actually holding doesn't include for example fifty percent think inflow of new also includes a crane in the refinery also include international assets loss international essence and some of the paid about one billion dollars last year so i don't think really rose nifty is overpaying for that fair price would be let's see more exact definition for four days. like i care a lot to deliver my well we're following the other side of things they are well similar details a lot and then i. look forward to thank you. next the foreign minister of iceland tells our team how his country mashed up pull itself away from the financial abyss .

wealthy british style sun it's a time to buy. into the. markets find scandal find out what's really happening to the global economy for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines to name two crimes a report on our. culture is the same or different a huge music to share her mind with the market turning it into.